Balloon on a wire...
Thread Starter
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 1,546
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From: Oxford, UK
Balloon on a wire...
Most will have seen it on the BBC, a balloon hanging from high tension electricity wires.....hung there quite a while, while the emergency services made sure that the power was turned off.
Only slightly more comfortable than being stuck in a lift, what?
Only slightly more comfortable than being stuck in a lift, what?
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 128
Likes: 0
From: Northants
Balloon on a wire
Just up the road from me in Northants, Mary. Pretty scary stuff. Reminds me of a former fellow glider pilot who ended up suspended from the wires he hadn't spotted on the approach to a field landing a few years ago. The emergency services had him out of his SF27 and on the ground within the hour and he and his retrieve crew then retired to a Little Chef cafe a few hundred yards away. The staff, obviously noting his shaken state, invited him to sit down and calm down, but then lamented "we'd offer you a cup of tea, luv, but I'm afraid the power's gone off.......". Whether our hero chose to 'fess up or not is not recorded...
Joined: Sep 2011
Posts: 1,146
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From: The Wild West (UK)
Paraglider and hang-glider pilots seem to do it on a fairly regular basis.
Alas I didn't see it, but one of my old hang-gliding colleagues got caught up in some lower voltage wires, which set his glider on fire. As his harness burned through, he was dropped a short distance to the ground, then scrambled to safety. Seconds later the power came on again, frying the wreckage and dropping it on the spot he had just vacated.
After I left, someone managed to shut down the east-coast main line for several hours by landing in the overhead lines. Aside from being somewhat antisocial, I always wondered whether they charged him for it. Never got to ask.
Alas I didn't see it, but one of my old hang-gliding colleagues got caught up in some lower voltage wires, which set his glider on fire. As his harness burned through, he was dropped a short distance to the ground, then scrambled to safety. Seconds later the power came on again, frying the wreckage and dropping it on the spot he had just vacated.
After I left, someone managed to shut down the east-coast main line for several hours by landing in the overhead lines. Aside from being somewhat antisocial, I always wondered whether they charged him for it. Never got to ask.
